Former Folk Fellows

2009 (current)

Dr Jennifer Gall


2008

Dr Ronald McCoy

Doctor, academic and Scottish music expert, Dr Ronald McCoy, is the 2008 National Folk Fellow. Through his work on the Emily Lyle Collection in the National Library, he has explored the contribution of the Scots and Gaels to Australian folk culture. He will reinterpret those songs, stories and tunes by recreating a Scottish ceilidh with the help of a a harpist, a piper and the Melbourne Scottish Fiddle Club in the Fellowship concert at the 2008 National Folk Festival.

 

2007

Ian Blake

The 2007 National Folk Fellow, Ian Blake, is a performer, composer, sound engineer and sound artist. Ian will create a suite of musical and sound works combining live and electro-acoustic music drawing on childrenĄ¯s songs and games found in the Library's folklore recordings. This new work will premiere at the 2007 National Folk Festival.

2006

Ben Stephenson and Adrian Barker

The focus of Ben and Adrian's research was Australian dance music of Irish origin held in the National Library Folklore Collection. During their time in the Library Ben and Adrian also researched across the collections, locating recordings that have assisted them to "identify patterns of change and development of styles of playing and the means by which the tunes are learnt and passed on". One of the results of their research is a 13 track CD and booklet Undertones: Irish music from Australia.

2005

Graham Dodsworth

Graham discovered many songs that had "slipped through the net of attention" given to other well known traditional Australian songs. From the 30-40 he identified as being "rough diamonds", Graham recorded 12 songs and performed these at the 2005 Festival Concert under the title Trawling for Rough Diamonds. His songs will eventually be made available through MusicAustralia (www.musicaustralia.org), along with his annotations of their origin and significance.

Read more about Graham's Fellowship in his article Trawling the Library for Rough Diamonds

2004 Inaugural Folk Fellows

Dave De Santi and Jane Brownlee

Jane and Dave researched across the vast number of unpublished recordings in the Folklore collection, in particular the collections of Chris Sullivan, Norm O'Connor, John Meredith, Rob Willis, Alan Scott and the Wattle Records collection. Dave and Jane found many tunes and songs that were completely new to them. They transcribed enough tunes for 18 CDs, from which they selected 51 for the double CD Australian Traditional Dance Tunes and are currently publishing an associated tune book.

Read more about Dave and Jane's Fellowship in Jane Brownlee's article Song Treasures in the National Library of Australia